A Scarlet Thirst
by PerpetualLestat
Summary: Taking place at merely the beginning of Anne Rice's Prince Lestat, prior to the Sacred Core and "The Voice", our hero, sometimes anti-hero, Lestat, out of exile, seeks comfort in Louis in New York City where he resides with Armand at Trinity Gate. There he murders Louis' newly found companion. A companion with a peculiar taste. Suggested reads: Interview, TVL, QotD.


The Heat

"You pretentious brat!" he spat, flailing his arms."You are incorrigible!" Louis stood over the body of a young, delicate man with dirty blonde hair. Much darker than my own and clipped very short at the neckline with long, shaggy bangs that were curling over his lifeless hazel eyes.

"Oh yes, he's very much dead!" I lifted his wrist and dropped it, laughing, yet trying to keep my composure. Louis had taken a liking to this young photographer, Warren Bailey. This man was soft not unlike himself, but technologically savvy and quick-tongued. The small boned Warren had so much compassion towards Louis' self-loathing and had a strong optimistic outlook on life. His foraged purity, cheerfulness, and pep, "-was the equivalent of small dog!" I spoke my thoughts aloud, taking Warren's chin in my hand and turning his head over to one side, idly analyzing him. My left eyebrow arched, inquisitive of his handsome features. "How could you put your trust in a dog with an iPhone?"

I reached down into the beautiful dead's pocket and took out his cellular, holding it in the direction of Louis' gaze. I pointed at the phone in my hand, tapping the glass with my fingernails. "You see this? Everything you've ever shared with him! Information about you here - documented and to be shared beyond your control!"

 _I was insanely jealous._

"You are insanely jealous." Louis spoke softly, looking at me with green eyes glossed over, knowing this wholeheartedly. He could not read my thoughts but he could easily read my actions. His heart sank, but only momentarily. There was still a strong heat in face. Uprising.

With Warren strung out in the gutter of a side street in the fish scented China Town of New York City, it was understandable. It was sloppy and distasteful. The streets were wet, but not with rain. It was with waste and blood. A mixture of both aquatic and bodily excrements.

"I am, my dear friend, and so be it! I am all of these things. How is this a surprise to you, anyway? You cannot deny that in my selfishness I am also protecting you."

A pink neon sign, reading _Take Home Food_ flickered above head. How different Louis' face appeared there in the night, it casted a glow that was hot and carnal. I was coming down off the high of my kill and the taste of the dead youth in my throat dissipated. Yet looking at Louis, I was some how becoming feverish. "There was something not right about him. He had access to too much. Men and women are always enamored by your beauty Louis and sympathetic to the idea that you may have some humanity left in you, but you and I both know that isn't true. Not anymore. There is no humanity left in you. Not in your spirit or physicality. You have come to terms with that loss long ago. So please, quit with the sorrow, the sympathy, this tender heartedness-" the neon sign flickered yet again, I stopped mid-sentence. The _Home Food_ portion of the sign went out completely. I continued, "Let us leave here. You are thirsting."

"You're right." Louis responded, defeated. He looked at the body on the ground then looked up at me. Those green eyes captivated me now by the light of the yellow street lamps, I could sense his heart race. His eyes widened and his chest heaved, "There was something unique about the taste of him, wasn't there?"

"Yes. I suppose. He was hot." I shrugged, dusting the topic off.

"Hot?" Louis' face contorted, questioning. A little bit of saliva sat on his bottom lip, making it appear dewy and sweet.

"Wouldn't you know? It was orgasmic!" I teased, "His blood was hot and thrusting. It was an unusual penetrating fluid. From the moment I sunk my teeth into him, the thickness of his blood was more animalistic, than human. The febricity of volcanic lava."

Louis gasped, "He was absolutely delicious!" It was straining for him to admit this.

"Well, well! I knew those thoughts from little Warren were not just dreams but in fact reality. You took the Little Drink from him from time to time when he was in a drunken haze, keeping him alive and confused."

"It was difficult. It seemed as if his blood became sweeter each time I tasted him. I fought the hunger and fed on others. Yet, no matter how often I fed or how disciplined I was, I couldn't stop thinking about my next Little Drink. My body convulsed and thrived in ways I cannot explain! After the come down, came the fever." Louis came in close, his hand reached out to touch mine. "This heat." He whispered.

I looked down at the veins in my hand, my blood within pumping hot, "We must leave here now." I urged. The heat on my breath close to his lips made him beautifully shudder.

Louis and I traveled by Lincoln town car to the East Village, where we found a table for two in the back of an underground Japanese punk sake bar. It was dark, dank, small, and each wall was covered in graffiti and stickers. Louis enjoyed the aroma of a cold unfiltered sake. He found comfort in simply holding the beverage in his unusually warm hands.

"I cannot feed here." Louis grumbled. We were surrounded by an eclectic assortment of scummy crust punks, edgy bridge and tunnel types, to club kids and queens, and all of manhattans nighttime art-performance patrons. We were completely overlooked here and surprisingly the most human in appearance, which is an uncanny thing to say, as Louis was the utmost breathtaking vision of the crown prince of darkness to behold. His glossy black hair seemed to disappear effortlessly into his black on black two piece Ralph Lauren woolen suit and dress shirt. His jacket held together by a single one-button enclosure. It had to be a choice among something of Armand's taste. Louis was currently living at his estate, Trinity Gate, on the upper east side. I considered myself to be in exile, that is, until the voices of desperation penetrated my mind. _Oh, how I wanted to be close to him!_

In bold fashion, I wore a Brioni silk, wool, and cashmere blended blazer, a grey-blue playing off the color of my eyes, enhancing them with its silky shine. A brazen red and blue paisley printed napkin peeking out of my front pocket. My hint of fire. A white slim cotton-Oxford shirt with 3 buttons, open, at my smoothly tanned neck. My white-blond mane fallen out of its string from my kill, framing my face. Being burned by the sun had its benefits. I was a blinding image of luxurious seduction, ready to pounce.

"I can't stop thinking about The Heat." He continued, "I see it in your face. I can hear it in your chest."

I nodded, placing a few strands of hair behind my right ear, "We cannot let this consume us. There must be a logical reason as to what and who Warren Bailey was aside from his childlike idiocies to expose you as a Child of Darkness on the Internet for all those to see. You were being dissected."

"You are sweating." Louis removed his hands from his drink, his eyebrows furrowed. He lifted a table napkin and lovingly blotted my forehead and cheek. His touch so gentle.

I _was_ sweating! I didn't know why, other than this insatiable feeling that had come over me.

So slowly it moved over me, like a drug, a wave of it creeping up from my toes to my chest. I took the napkin from Louis' hand, light droplets of blood stained it red.

I remained calm. I could see the thirst in Louis increase. A strange, almost dazed excitement that I have only seen in him during a feeding. I began to realize he was not looking at me at all, but at my flesh.

Still holding the stained napkin in my hand, I brought it up to Louis' chin, then to his lips and under his nose. Again, his chest heaved and his nose flared. He brought both of his hands up to mine breathing in my scent deeply, then closed my hand, causing the napkin to crinkle, and placed my hand back down on to the table. Closing his eyes, he breathed outward.

"Louis." I said, "have you spoken to the others about this?" Surely, Armand must have sensed a change in him.

"No." We locked eyes again. "It began subtly, this wanting. Then increased into an addictive drug-like affair."

I swallowed hard. I had sucked Warren dry and was experiencing a high that lingered on for hours now after the kill. I pulled at the collar of my shirt, allowing heat to escape from the inside, and without looking down, I knew it was stained. I stood up, feverish, and headed for the door. Louis struggled to catch up with me.

Outside I turned left, standing at the edge of the corner block, allowing the October air's coolness embrace me.

Swiftly, Louis caught me by the arm and pushed me between a tight corridor between two buildings. I was thrown off balance, high, and awe-struck by his sudden use of power. His arm came around my back and I was pulled into him forcefully, chest to chest. My heart pounded, I did not resist. I collapsed like a rag doll in his arms. I knew what he wanted, and I loved it. Who am I to keep such a pleasurable fill from my dearest? I would have done the same, but sooner and with less conviction.

I reached a hand around to the back of his head, grabbing a fistful of his soft, black hair. Edging him closer to the flesh on my neck. His entire body jerked with resistance. I heard him moan.

"Is this what you want?" I teased on while I struggled in his grip, not able to steady myself in his embrace. He lifted his head from my neck to my nose, breathing into my inviting mouth.

"I won't do this, Lestat. Not to you." _Oh his precious, excessive guilt!_

With my tongue I slowly lined one of his fangs, then tore the flesh. Drops of hot blood danced on his tongue, he quickly lapped up the droplets and pushed himself into my kiss.

He sucked down onto me hard, and I felt my back slam into the wall behind me. The pang of the brick wall was a swirling wave of pleasure. I was in a dizzying state of euphoria, and I submitted to it. God's Angels in Heaven, was I floating! It was an immaculate transfusion. By the time I realized my feet were not touching the ground, Louis had already sunk his fangs directly into one of my carotid arteries. I moaned in pleasure, with my arms around him.

I am in fact taller and stronger than Louis is, mind you, but with the blood of the ancients traveling throughout his circulatory system and my dazed, blood-drugged state, his beauty and form simply overpowered me. This was pure vampiric bloodlust.

More and more and more. I felt more feverish than before. So much hot, gushing, liquid depleting my body. Louis' hips grinding against me in tune with the beat of my heart.

Stop.

His pull was so strong.

I saw nothing. Then swirls of color, scattering.

 _Stop_.

Darkness.

I came to, on the floor of the cold pavement.

Or so I thought.


End file.
